Renewables Could Meet Most of U.S. Power Needs, Cut GHG Emissions 78%
Utilities
continue to invest in new surplus fossil fuel-fired generation capacity –
primarily natural gas power plants in the U.S. – in order to compensate for the
intermittent nature of wind and solar energy resources, co-lead author
Christopher Clack, a CIRES physicist and mathematician, noted. That need not be
the case going forward, however, he stated for a press release.
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Fellow co-lead author Alexander MacDonald, who recently retired as director of NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory, pointed out that the sun is shining or the winds are blowing somewhere across the U.S. all the time. That suggests the issue of solar and wind energy intermittency may be resolved by scaling up renewable energy generation ¨to match the scale of weather systems.¨
Finding
lowest-cost national energy mixes
Having
studied weather and worked on improving forecasts for more than 40 years,
MacDonald assembled a team of four other NOAA scientists to explore the idea of
scaling up U.S. renewable energy generation to match the scale of weather
systems. Making use of NOAA’s high-resolution meteorological data ¨they built a
model to evaluate the cost of integrating different sources of electricity into
a national energy system,¨ CIRES explains.
The
team’s model estimates renewable energy resource potential, energy demand, CO2
emissions and the costs of scaling up and operating generation and transmission
systems to meet future energy needs. This enabled them to assess the cost,
reliability and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with various mixes of
energy generation sources.
The
researchers then programmed the model to seek out the lowest cost combination.
No matter what constraints were applied, the model always wound up installing
more renewable energy on the grid than exists today.
“Our research shows a transition to a
reliable, low-carbon, electrical generation and transmission system can be
accomplished with commercially available technology and within 15 years,”
MacDonald highlighted.
A
national superhighway for electrons
In
seeking out lowest-cost solutions, the model incorporates costs related to
building and paying for transmission infrastructure improvements – specifically
a new, high-voltage direct-current transmission grid (HVDC) to supplement that
in use today.
HVDC
transmission lines are in use today, carrying electrical energy over long
distances without losing nearly as much energy. The model chose to use newly
installed HVDC lines extensively. Moreover, the research team concluded that
investing in efficient, long-distance transmission was key to keeping costs
low.
“With
an ‘interstate for electrons’, renewable energy could be delivered anywhere in
the country while emissions plummet,” MacDonald commented.
“An HVDC grid would create a national
electricity market in which all types of generation, including low-carbon
sources, compete on a cost basis. The surprise was how dominant wind and solar
could be.”
The
CIRES’ study has been published in Nature Climate Change.
“This study pushes the envelope,¨ Stanford University’s Mark Jacobson
wrote in commenting on the study in an editorial for the
journal. ¨It shows that intermittent renewables plus transmission can
eliminate most fossil-fuel electricity while matching power demand at lower
cost than a fossil fuel-based grid – even before storage is considered.”
*Image
credits: 1) The Smoky Hills Wind Farm in Kansas. Drenaline/Wikimedia
Creative Commons; Cross Sound Cable
